Meeting Economic Needs, Preserving Morality, and Showcasing Nations: Working-Class Accommodation at 19th-Century World's Fairs

When first introduced in the second half of the nineteenth century, international expositions attracted a diverse range of laborers from around the world. Some of these people were employed at these events, while others attended as part of “working-class delegations.” For exposition organizers and city officials, this population influx presented several practical challenges, but none more important than the management of these people’s basic needs such as food, water, and shelter. While the issue of worker’s nutrition has been thoroughly investigated, little is known about the places these itinerant workers called home during the expositions. This paper attempts to close that gap in scholarly understanding by exploring the issues underlying the provision of accommodation for workers at these events. This paper will turn to two key case studies to reveal that beyond their economic significance, the construction of these dwellings was ultimately used to fulfill the host country’s desire to control the working-class populations that had made their way across national borders. First, we will consider the treatment of British Workers at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair and the various measures taken to maintain "proper order and discipline" in the cottages built to house them during the event. Our second case study will draw attention to the treatment of the young girls that worked as shop assistants and servants during the 1905 World's Fair in Liège where a bitter feud broke out between a Catholic organization and local authorities who were committed to ensuring the “preservation of morality” within the recently constructed housing complex. This paper draws on a variety of nineteenth-century archival material and sheds light on a little-known organizational aspect of the earliest international expositions.